Microsoft has announced that it has already sold 60 million licenses for Windows 8 taking into account both upgrades and sales to OEMs for new devices, claiming that this is a similar sales trajectory to that experienced with Windows 7.

The other upbeat announcement included in the latest Windows blog post was that the number of apps in the Windows store has quadrupled since it opened - which suggests there are around 40,000 in total. The blog also reports that the Windows 8 store has  passed the 100 million app download mark just two months after it was launched. However, as the Register points out:

While 100 million apps downloaded in two months sounds like a nice, healthy figure, it's actually shockingly unimpressive. At that rate, it will take Microsoft nearly 67 years to match the 40 billion apps that have been downloaded from Apple's App Store since it opened in 2008.

The latest market share figures from Net Applications indicate that Windows 8 currently has 2.09% of the operating system market which also paints a rather gloomy picture of its first two months, especially when you take into account that Vista, the OS that is generally acknowledged to be Microsoft's disaster, still has a 5.53% share.

However, perhaps it is too soon to judge comsumer's response to Windows 8 due to the relatively small number of devices that are actually out there - 60 million licences may have been sold but that certainly doesn't mean a similar number of units are available. However, as this video shows, this week's CES has showcased attractive Windows 8 hardware that is on its way to market and may be enough to justify Microsoft's optimism.